SD1189. John Herman Merivale to John Kenyon
Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 390–391 (in part).
Bedford Square
Monday Apr. 18. [1843]
My dear Kenyon
After first acknowledging in all humility the high compliment intended me by the dedication and only disclaiming the term paraphrase as not justly applicable to that, if it have any merit, it is that of being close & almost word-for-word translation, I proceed, tho with much more diffidence, to comply with your injunction that I should speak my [illegible word] sentiments of the poem you so kindly sent me. As a sketch, or out-burst, of feeling & sentiment, it indeed merits the highest praise, and some of the stanzas, and many single expressions, are poetical, & original too, in an extraordinary degree. At the same time, it strikes me to require much patient revision and perhaps some curtailments—and, to save time, I have placed on the margins certain pencil marks—meaning by the crosses to signify that I either do not understand the meaning, or think it so enigmatical that it will be at least “caviare to the vulgar”—by the round o’s, those passages in which either rhyme or rhythm strike me as so very defective as absolutely to demand alteration—(in some instances, perhaps, better ommission—) and by the lines those which I most particularly admire and think almost incapable of improvement because they are so excellent. The whole of the Allusion to the old story of Pan and the mariners is most felicitous. The several stanzas assigned to the Twelve |dié| Majores not all equally so; and some of the poor devils (for such the fathers of the Church inform us they were in truth) I think rather scan[t]ily handled. Poor Schiller himself has at long last found his match in the field of song, and has no longer to complain that his poetical inspirations were only met by prose criticism. However I don’t quite agree that he deserves to be treated so very seriously either as Count Stolberg formerly treated or as the present author now treats him—in as much as he sets out with a [illegible word] which I would rather construe into a sufficient disclaimer of any distinct criticism—viz. the Old Beings he invokes are those of the “Fable-land.” How then can it be said that he meant them as opponents of Christian Purity? He invites them back to the World of Song, of which he thinks (and I quite agree with him) that they had done nothing worthy of being dispossessed of it, and I see no more reason to quarrel with Schiller’s Fable-land than wih Spenser’s pleasant land of Færie or with a Drury-lane or Opera-house Olympus. The whole question is whether The Ideal, or The Real, be the fittest field for Poetry—and the way in which I would solve the difficulty is by admitting her to an equal participation of both. “Mount Zion” is undoubtedly “a pleasant place,” but that is no reason why Mount Parnassus should not be a pleasant place also. But you must not allow Miss B to make the E short in Caducëus.
Ever yours
J H Merivale
I have said nothing of the two sonnets which I think exquisite both in feeling & diction. I could not resist taking a copy, but will take care that it shall not go further without the author’s permission.
Docket, in EBB’s hand: Merivale.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
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